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I am Perry Peterson, a retired auditor and tax accountant. My wife Valeta and I live along the front range of the beautiful Colorado Rocky Mountains.

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March 30, 2012

When he was shot, Trayvon Martin was not the baby-faced boy in the photo that has been on front pages across the country.

And George Zimmerman wasn't the beefy-looking figure in the widely published mugshot.

Both photos are a few years old and no longer accurately depict the participants in the shooting.

They have, however, helped shape initial public opinion.

Before photos on left - after on right

Trayvon Martin

George Zimmerman

Referring to George Zimmerman as a “white Hispanic” has also helped race-baters inflame opinion among blacks.

Was using the word white necessary other than to inflame race hatred?

"When you have such a lopsided visual comparison, it just stands to reason that people would rush to judgment," said Kenny Irby, who teaches visual journalism at the Poynter Institute, a journalism think tank in St. Petersburg, Fla.

Hoodie wearing gunmen kill one and wound 5 in the South Chicago District of Congressman Bobby Rush the former Black Panther who was removed from the House floor for babbling Bible texts while wearing a hoodie as reported here.

In fact, during a span of six-hours Thursday night, 13 people were shot, leaving two dead in Chicago.

It would seem it takes more courage to simply walk down the street in Rush's district than it does to wear a hooded sweatshirt in the House of Representatives by way of a stunt in a bizarre tribute to a young man shot and killed in Florida during a shooting incident still under investigation.

At the time of the Congressman Bobby Russ hoodie melt-down on the House floor, former Speaker Nancy Pelosi "applauded his courage" for doing so.

Perhaps if Bobby Rush and Nancy Pelosi ever got around to actually doing something to uplift the people in Rush's district, there would be fewer stories like the one above out of Chicago, and less need to don a piece of clothing in Congress in what amounts to an empty and silly gesture.

On election night 2008, freshman Meagan Cassidy left Lake Forest College and hopped a train to Chicago to celebrate Barack Obama’s impending victory.

“There was probably no better place to be,” Cassidy said in a phone interview. The excitement generated that evening spurred her on to become an intern and then a field organizer in three congressional contests and two human rights campaigns.

She is not working for a campaign this time around.

She and her friends aren’t discussing the election as they did 2008.

“There is not much talk of Obama at all,” Cassidy said of the mood on campus, which extends beyond the president. “I don’t think anyone’s satisfied.”

Obama enjoyed a wave of youth support in his run to the presidency, winning 66 percent of voters aged 18-to-29 in the race against Republican Senator John McCain.

Twenty-two million young voters cast ballots, making up about 18 percent of the electorate.

There is a significant dip in enthusiasm on campus now as illustrated by another student who enthusiastically cheered Obama in 2008:

Austin Gilmore, president of the college Democrats at UNC, agreed. On election night in 2008, Gilmore, then 17, and a friend marched into a McDonald’s restaurant in downtown Raleigh.

“We had Obama t-shirts as well as a couple homemade signs,” Gilmore said. “People were just spontaneously clapping for us, which was great.” Now, Gilmore says, he wears his Obama shirt for gym workouts.

Just how much the campus fizzle will hurt Obama in November remains to be seen.

A trend shows that parents are turning to loans for children's education earlier than ever.

When it comes to student loan debt, will kindergarten be the new college?

Parents are turning to lenders earlier than ever before, seeking help to pay for their children's elementary, middle and high school educations, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal's SmartMoney.

Lenders who specialize in pre-college loans are even available.

One of them, Your Tuition Solution, says demand for the upcoming year is already up, according to the website.

Demand seems to be coming from families with an annual income of more than $150,000, according to SmartMoney.

With a "Hamburglar" on the loose, maybe Officer Big Mac should get on the case.

Police say a young man, seemingly inspired by the Hamburglar character once featured in McDonald's advertising campaigns, ran between a car and the takeout window at an Augusta, Maine restaurant as an employee tried to hand a bag of food to a driver.

A witness flagged down an officer who was leaving a nearby convenience store.

Lt. Christopher Massey, acting on a description of the hungry thief, found him in the parking lot of a rival fast food restaurant eating out of a McDonald's bag.

Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia humorously invoked the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution, which forbids cruel and unusual punishments, when discussing the ObamaCare legislation during oral arguments at the Supreme Court.

“What happened to the Eighth Amendment? You really want us to go through these 2,700 pages? Is this not totally unrealistic? That we are going to go through this enormous bill item by item and decide each one?”